Seeing what’s ‘Up’

Michael Apted’s “49 Up” (airing as part of the documentary series “P.O.V.”), the seventh installment in a documentary series that began in 1964, comes to American television this week. What had originally been a “glimpse of Britain’s future” as embodied in an economically diverse pack of 7-year-olds has transformed over time into a long look at what it means to be human, to bud, to ripen. (But not yet to wither.)

As someone whose age approximates that of the subjects, this series has always seemed like a mirror to me: an opportunity for reflection. But anyone who has lived long enough to have some sense of the past and more than a vague idea of the future should find resonance here.

It has become a ritual that its subjects keep showing up for without quite knowing why. Some claim to hate it, but 12 of the original 14 participants are present for the current edition. The series has followed them through some difficult years, but on the verge of 50, most know themselves pretty well. None mistakes stuff for happiness.

One likens the series to today’s more frequently scheduled reality shows, calling it “fascinating” but wondering, “Does it have any value?” It does, and it’s left to Neal, who spent years on the margins before getting involved in politics, to express the series’ deeper theme. Watching a butterfly slowly beat its wings one summer afternoon, it struck him that “there isn’t any more to life than this, just really being what you are. . . . realizing that life goes on all around and there are millions of other living creatures who have to find their place as well.”

(KCET, Tues., 8 p.m.)

-- Robert Lloyd